Buckaroo

uh ohh, hope I haven't released dru's "devil inside"

I've pointed it out to people and always get an "oh yeah, I see it now". The light has to be right though, you can't see it all day. It's bands of lighter rock making an outline. And no I'm not on any drugs other than adrenaline.

I found one of your "special" pamphlets while walking down one of your routes the other day, however it was mistaken for TP and as that's the one thing forgotten on that outing it did come in handy. If one was to get your autograph can it be sold on Ebay and how much should one charge?

"" It was almost as though the melody was already there waiting for him to find it."" Maybe because it was. Musicians may just be channelers for something that already exists. They just record it into a form that can be heard and recognized by all. Melodies correspond with molecular structure. """"Physicist Joel Sternheimer discovered that each molecule in the body corresponds to a specific melody. There is a distinct affinity between sections of the music of various composers and the melodic structure of certain molecules. Woven through the music of Beethoven, for example, are the melodies of ACTH (Kidney molecule), Anti-tripsine (Lung molecule) and Cytochrome (Liver molecule). Beethoven died from complications arising from these internal organs."""" LINK ""the climber making the first ascent, creating a new route. The line was there. It was always there. The act of climbing it turns it into a tangible thing, something more than it was."" First ascensionists even more so than musicians are just recognizing something that's more tangible and already there, cleaning and maybe putting in some anchors. I've often marveled at how a long route can be continuous with no aid, a long crack sized for human hands and fingers that goes to knobs and face holds then to another crack. Outer Space is a typical example. Like the crux where it seems to blank out and then there's just one hold right within a humans reach. It's like it was created intentionally just for humans to climb. Then when you start looking at the NA map on El Cap and the heart. Or across the valley on middle cathedral, have you ever seen the large wizard with pointed hat and glasses? It's a perfect image and I'm surprised it's not a recognized feature. Has anyone else seen this?

Harness Hang Syndrome: Fact and Fiction Harness Hang Pathology

""but low angle rappels on blocky terrain provide ample opportunity to pull rocks on your head as you try to clear the ropes while the first person rappels."" This is the primary reason for me. Blocky loose terrain. The kind of stuff where any disturbance drags things closer to the edge or off and you want to minimize it as much as possible. The rope bag trick worked very well. I've tried the butterfly, just don't have the patience to coil it each one smaller, it was much faster to just stuff both ropes at once. Plus I was scrambling down through trees between raps and I could just throw the bag down when needed. Was doing twin 50's and have never had it that easy on a low angle rappel going down first. Usually you try to go second so your partner can get the rope straight to the next anchor. Rigged a bag out of a sleeping bag stuff sack with a clip separate from the cinch cord. Couple minor problems, first the rope was a little twisted, not sure if this happened on the initial packing or from the rap device. Secondly it's kind of scary when you get near the end and can't see the end of the rope cuz it's in the bag. This was alleviated by tying the ends together. Have to search for a bag with something around the top to hold it open while packing the rope, like a nylon hoop, hopefully someone makes something, it might be tricky to fabricate. There was a party of Mounties coming up as I was rapping down it was nice not to worry if I was tossing the rope on their heads. (speaking of gear the new Reversino is sweet)

"to butterfly coil the rope over your shoulders instead of tossing the rope down the pitch so that you don't have loose coils of rope hanging down below" Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

The large diameter is 3.5"

Not letting me attach an image.

Need to do a multi pitch rappel with 50m twin ropes on a route with loose rock . The beta is to stack the rope and pay it out as you're rappelling. Was wondering how this is done? This leads to another question. This piece of gear was found at the hut below the route in question, was wondering if this is a rope stack holding device? It looks like you could lap coil the rope and then insert it into the device to hold the rope as you're rappelling. It's got like a solid nylon core and is flexible. I think the quick draw is separate as it's easily removed.

Unless you go out of your way there's not that much technical climbing on the route. The famous slab crossing is only one move protected by smaller gear than 3.5. There is a single alternate pitch lower down hand crack size, we had a #3 but don't think we needed it. There were no iced up cracks when we did it. The hand crack pitch had no other cracks nearby, if it had been iced we would have gone the easier class 4 way.

"aren't dynamics harder to haul with?" You might have a couple extra takes hauling with a dynamic until it gets tight and starts to move the load. I think once it's tight it's the same. I've never used a static so can't honestly compare, however I've hauled a 180 pound haul bag no problem and I'm only 135 lbs. I forget where I read the story.(or even if it was fiction or not) A party was on a big wall hanging belay. They decided to bail and tossed the haul bag. They realized too late that the end of the static haul line was still tied to the anchors. Everything pulled and they fell to the ground. The best advice I have for anyone doing something like the Salathe is change arms. Jug with a different arm high on every jug pitch and switch arms aiding also. Like when aiding you pull up and lock off with one arm, and clip your daisy with the other, switch arms every aid pitch. When jugging the lower arm takes more load because your cranking to a lower position relative to your body. On the Salathe I got tennis elbow bigtime, maybe could have averted by changing arms, avoiding repetitive stress.

I like the Stratos by Edelweiss because of the edge protection. Any extra protection/margin on a big wall is good. To save weight use a 9mm half. In a pinch you could lead with the Stratos 9mm. Static ropes are a little dangerous for hauling, if the pig falls to the end of the line the force generated can pull your anchors. This has happened with dire consequences.

Hire a teenager. It's done all the time in Yos camp 4, haul bags going in to half dome, it's about 10 miles. Lot cheaper than animals and hopefully less destructive of the environment. Look at getting lighter gear. I've got mine down to 45 pounds with 7 days food and fuel. If you're suffering just go a little slower.

""Sorry about the outdated information in Nelson's book. I should have helped him update it for the new edition."" No worries mate, I think Nelson does that sometimes just to weed out the gumbies. If you can't find the route with betamin maybe you shouldn't be on it. Nice topo, I always wondered why that fourth pitch was so sandbagged. Dohhh, we were doing a variation!!

Me and Ed H. did this on June 9th. It was sort of wet, the wettest spot being the crux undercling pitch above the blue crack. This climb is underated, it comes pretty close to Outer Space and it's longer. Noticed a newer variation of the 8th pitch, says runnout in Nelson's, there's a bolt line on the left of the dihedral through some knobs. The blue crack pitch goes with a number 3 because it gets easy above it, and there's so many easy runnouts on this climb you get used to it. This is a good pitch to practice your gear skills to avoid rope drag. Rapping down this pitch this time was a trip, the rope end went in a hole at the bottom of the blue crack and came out at the undercling below, holding the breath pulling it out, luckily it didn't get stuck. On the rap down look out for the rope eater cracks/flakes on the 4th pitch, I believe they are part of Giants Tears. The first time I did it the rope got caught and when looking down the crack there was 5 cut off rope ends inside. Fiddled with the rope for several minutes and before cutting it off, yarded as hard as possible, it popped out. It was a good day. The Nelson topo is inaccurate at the start, it shows a right facing dihedral. There are no right facing dihedrals anywhere on this part of the face, but there are several left facing ones. Don't miss the rock approach gully, it's fully canopied by brush at the bottom, any other way is total bushwhack. The road is getting quite overgrown, don't take a nice car, or one with too low ground clearance, the Civic made it but had to go slow.

"" Buckaroo, how long would it take to descend from top of Index to Lake Serene and the trailhead there via a scramble route, and is that route hard to find from top of Index?"" Like MrMo I don't really recommended it to go down the first time, I was just putting it out there so you could compare times. And it is hard to find, and hard route finding once you're on it if you have no description, I got temporarily cliffed out near the bottom. Basically it's about 300 to 500 yards south of the summit. Right at the lowest place in the first pass you come to. It's called the "East Route" of Main peak in the tan Becky guide. The best way would be up the East Route and down toward Persis if you wanted a full traverse. Another little story from my traverse. I had been cliffed out like I said and phoned a buddy for beta, which he had little of since it'd been so long since he'd been on it. So after I got off ok I called him to tell him, then headed down from the lake in the dark. Right after hitting the trail for some reason I thought I'd stop and eat my last food even though I wasn't really hungry, just thought I'd eat for the extra energy to make the last descent down to the car. In fact I had trouble eating I was just so burned out from the days effort. Anyway just after I stopped to eat I heard a huge explosive rending and tearing sound from above the trail and subsequently the most horrific crashing and smashing. A hundred feet in front of me I saw sparks in the dark where the trail passes through. The smashing and crashing continued down the hill and I realized it was a huge rockfall. You could just hear trees, the ground, and other rocks being smashed and crashed all the way down to the valley floor, it sounded like a couple of pieces the size of volkswagens. It was timed right about where I would have been if I hadn't stopped to eat. It was pitch dark by that time, it would have been dicey. When I continued down in the light of my headlamp I could see the huge scars in the trail and surrounding brush and trees where the boulders had crashed through. I hurried by worrying that other stuff might come loose but luckily nothing ever did. You sometimes wonder if a particular mountain is "dark" so to speak. Index has sometimes felt like that, with all the people that have died there, Stuart is sort of the same way. Other places like WA pass don't feel like that. Or maybe it's just the rock and climate conditions that make it inherently more dangerous.

- what size rack do I really need to haul in current conditions (late June 05)? Depends on climbing skill, it's been free soloed. For the average climber a small to medium rack to 3.5. and one 60M. I did the full ridge and approach/descent in guide 10's. No axe or crampons but that was with less snow. - what are the descent options? cascadian or west ridge, or sherpa glacier if you approach from the N.

After you cross the pass at the top of Anderson creek drainage it's about 4 or 5 false summits until you get to the summit of Index main peak. I remember thinking I was almost there and it took another 2 or 3 hours. I also remember some steep snow and scrambling, not just a hilly hike. I would almost plan on doing part of the return in the dark or just do part of the ascent in pre dawn. I went up Anderson creek and summited then went down the normal route to Lake Serene. It was dark when I hit the lake and made it to the car at 1:00AM.

I have to agree with the hypothermia hypothesis, because they had warm clothes but weren't wearing them. I got hypothermic one time while winter surfing near Ventura beach, with a borrowed half cut wetsuit that was too big. The scariest thing about it is it can happen quickly and you don't realize it's happening. If someone else doesn't notice you're a goner. My friends were about 100 yards away in the surf and I just decided to get out for no particular reason. When I got out of the water, I had a very hard time walking and fell several times walking a half block back to the car. The incompetence I felt just walking makes me think it would have been difficult to swim in the surf especially if I'd lost my board. It took about two hours before I felt back to normal. Just a few more minutes in the water and I could have fallen off my board and possibly gone under, then I would have had to depend on my friends noticing quick enough to help from 100 yards in the surf. Lots of times during strenuous hiking the tendency is to take off a lot of layers to keep cool down to a point were you can't stand still for long if it's cold. These guys were probably hiking hard and maybe stopped to rest for too long and both went hypothermic near the same time so they couldn't help each other. Anyone hiking or climbing in the snow, especially places like Rainier, should be prepared to dig a snow cave and know when it's necessary. Even if all your gear is wet you can survive in a snow cave as long as you have polypro. A tent will only work to a certain extreme, but a snow cave will make it just another weekend.

excuse me, Sandy headwall

I led the hollow flake on the Salathe. One number 5 camalot, one number 3 big bro, one number 4 big bro. You're all by yourself with 1000 feet of air beneath your heels. The belayer is out of site around the corner. It's not a clean fall, depending on your gear you could hit the rubble filled bottom of the chimney or glance off the slab below. The 5 cam was useless, it got left 5 feet off the bottom. The number 3 big bro was walked up the 30 to 40 feet of the vertical crux section and left at the top where it starts to ease off. The number 4 right after that. TOTAL aerobics. You can maintain position but upward mobility is difficult. Big bros are hard to walk, and it takes several long seconds, up to half a minute depending on the rock, before it's protecting you again. They are also hard to place, practice and learn before a hard lead. Practice an offwidth chimney if you can find one down low, sometimes architecture has them, it's very technique dependent. I was thinking about building an adjustable offwidth training chimney just to hone technique, if I ever get some spare time.

Everybody is at fault and nobodies at fault. If you expect to climb OS on the weekend, without having to wait, and don't do the entire trail in the dark, you are dreaming. I've seen 7 people on Library ledge, who cares as long as you get back alive. It's a nice chance to stop and chat and catch some rays. I've been passed and have passed other parties, it's sometimes delicate but doing either one cleanly is part of being an experienced climber. If you're late to go to a fire, you should have passed. If you're resting on gear you aren't ready for the grade, especially at 5.9, especially multipitch. If you want to continue in that style do OS on a weekday. I still don't think either of the parties made any serious mistakes, after all no one was hurt or killed. was it Mr. Salathe? "vi can't ve all chust klimb?"

""Most cams with machined stops can be placed passively."" but only in very specific placements, like the pocket. From BD's web site PDF instructions for the camalot note the universal NO symbol in the pic of the camalot (figure 9) in a passive tapering nut placement , and this is with the best possible cam, two axle. http://www.bdel.com/gear/camalots.php ""BAD PLACEMENTS"" ""Figure 9 shows a unit with all of the cams extended. Though the unit is strong in this position the cams are not supported securely here. The unit could twist out and the placement can fail.""

The only cam that I know of that will not invert in a fall is the camalot. It should not be placed like a nut, only like in the picture, and this is usually a pocket where the crack at the face is narrower. Tipped out cams used as chocks can't be relied on to hold a fall, they are not designed to do so. Once it's tipped out it has no cam action, just 3 or 4 small points touching. Even in a nice tapering nut placement it will almost always rotate out. Think about it, 4 small points touching, for the cam to hold each side has to have exactly the same amount of friction, if one side has a little bump in the rock it holds better and rotating on the axle even a small amount, the other side holds less the more it rotates, boom it's out. Another factor is the direction of load, if the load is not exactly perpendicular to the plane of the contact points it's going to rotate regardless of friction. Or think about it this way, it's a nut with 4 small points and a reverse taper loaded by an pivoting axle above the points.